NEXT
MEETING_____________________________________
Monday, July
29 - 12:00 noon
Cellar Restaurant at Union Square
Topic: Zero Net Energy Houses, Ed Vineyard -
ORNL
Building America is an R&D program supported by the Department of
Energy to reduce the energy consumption of homes by 50 to 70 percent while
requiring little or no extra cost to build such homes. The new houses are of
"zero net energy designs", meaning that on an annual basis, they will be able to
export more energy than they import. Enabling production technologies include
solar photovoltaics, biomass-microturbines, fuel cells and thermal and electric
storage.
Ed Vineyard, Manager of the Buildings Technology Center at the Department
of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) will describe the DOE program
and tell us about ORNL's role in the development of related technologies. The
Building Technology Center will construct up to 20 local Habitat for Humanity
houses. These houses will integrate extensive energy saving technologies and
systems now available and under development at DOE and around the country.
Additional plans call for the Tennessee Valley Authority to participate in the
testing of some of the advanced technologies in these houses.
Our original program on Global Warming had to be postponed due to the
speaker's scheduling conflict. It is has been rescheduled for September
9.
Invocation: Steve Stark
Fellowship: Brenard Cheatem
Entrée du jour:
Beef Bourguignon over rice, Cherry Cobbler
OUR PREVIOUS MEETING July 22, 2002
_________________________________
Our grateful appreciation goes to
Cathy Burnett for providing us with these informative and detailed notes.
Steve Manning identified the top 20 species of invasive plants, discussed
the much-needed services IPC (Invasive Plant Controls) provides, and showed
several impressive examples of Invasive Plant Control methods and results.
To our chagrin, East Tennessee is host to all 'top' 20 of the most common
invasive plants, which include the Water Hyacinth and Hydrilla in our waters.
Meanwhile our Parks, woods and wild areas are often choked by Privet (Chinese),
English Ivy, Japanese Honeysuckle, Bush Honeysuckle, Tree of Heaven, Chinese
wisteria, Microstegium grass (Japanese), Autumn Olive, Garlic Mustard,
Multi-flora Rose, Phragmites, Euonymous, and of course the ubiquitous Kudzu. The
process of controlling each of these species often requires a customized,
integrated operation, including the use of targeted herbicides. Using such
herbicides along with mechanical methods is really the safest and most effective
means of control, since the chemical companies must do much time-consuming,
expensive testing, both to comply with regulations and to avoid litigation. The
complete eradication of some of these plants can take years.
More public
awareness and education are ongoing efforts that will always be needed, and
include the important education of retail and wholesale nurseries, who currently
sell several of these invasive plants!
For more information contact Invasive
Plant Control at 800-449-6339, fax: 615-385-4124,
www.invasiveplantcontrol.com
FUTURE MONDAY MEETINGS
_____________________________________
August 5: Methane Hydrate - An Abundant New Fuel or a
Green House Gas? Dr. Roddy Judkins, ORNL
August 19: Inter-basin Water Transfers from the Tennessee
River - An Issue Update - Dodd Galbraith, Commissioner for Environment and
Conservation
September 9: Global Warming - How Real the Threat? Dr.
Marilyn Brown, ORNL
September 23: TVA's Reservoir Operations - Resolving
competing interests - David Nye, TVA
WHERE WE MEET
_______________________________________________
Unless we note otherwise, all
of our presentation meetings are held at the Cellar Restaurant in the Tallan
Building, Union Square Downtown Chattanooga from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. Our meeting
room and luncheon service are open by 11:30 a.m. Lunch buffet is $10.00 per
person (inclusive). No reservation is required. Free parking is available in the
Days Inn Motel (on Carter St. and MLK Blvd,) courtesy of the Days Inn
management. When you park there, be sure to place a note on your dashboard
indicating you are attending the Engineers Club meeting.
QUESTIONS ?
___________________________________________
If you have any questions about
program items please call Steve McGuire at 756- 4430 or e-mail him at
stevemcguire@comcast.net. You can
find references to other Chattanooga Engineers Club members at our web site:
www.chattanooga.net/engineer/CEC
.